The Career Services’ annual Job and Internship Fair was held online on Tuesday afternoon.

The fair was organized through Handshake, an application specifically designed to help college students find jobs, which allowed students to visit different potential employers throughout the course of the fair.

Both individual and group sessions were available. Even if students did not want to have an interview with an employer, they could sit in on a half-hour group session to learn more about the organization or company.

Diane Smith, marketing specialist and career advisor at Career Services, was one of the faculty members involved with organizing and running the job fair.

Smith said that she felt the event went well overall and that attendees stayed engaged the whole time, but that she wished more students would have attended.

In total, 169 students registered for the fair, but not all of them scheduled individual sessions with employers.

“Since we are not able to host our events in person, we were glad we were still able to connect students with employers hiring for internships and jobs,” Smith said. “The great thing about the virtual job fair is students didn’t have to wait in line to speak with an employer.  They simply scheduled an open time and logged in at that time.”

Handshake, the virtual service used for the fair, turned out to fill the needs for the job fair pretty well, and may become a more commonly used tool at Eastern.

“I know a few employers had some technical issues at first, but we are able to resolve those and get them online,” Smith said. “The virtual fair process was new for us and we were pleased Handshake was able to roll out a product so quickly after the pandemic hit.”

Since individual meetings were scheduled in advance, students could visit other employers’ sessions or do anything else they wanted as long as they logged on in time for their interview.

They also did not have to worry about bringing enough copies of their resumes or other information since they could just send it virtually.

As of the time she was interviewed, Smith did not have any data on participants’ happiness with the event, but Career Services did gather feedback through a survey after the fair.

That way, they can predict and troubleshoot any issues that might be repeated at the next job fair.

The next job fair that Career Services will be offering is the Fall Education Job Fair which is scheduled for Nov. 4th. It is specifically for students looking for jobs in K-12 schools.

Career Services also has an ongoing speaker series taking place over Zoom which includes advice for finding a career and succeeding in it. Many of the speakers are Eastern alumni.

Information about these upcoming events is available on Eastern’s website under the Career Services section.

Luke Taylor can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].